Free Out of Control by Mary Connealy Page B

She’d said it quite clearly.
    â€œThere aren’t any, but you found one?”
    Ethan really should just go on home.
    â€œThey’re not elephants, but they’re similar. And they’re extinct. There aren’t any in America anymore .” Julia really couldn’t think of any smaller words to use with the Kincaid brothers. So she decided to move on from her talk of American elephants. That wasn’t what she was so excited about anyway. “I’d be glad to let you see the papers I’ve written. My work is quite extensive. If I can get an article published about the cavern, maybe they’ll show some interest in my other work. I keep copies of everything and bring my work when we move. And paper, plenty of paper and pencils.”
    Another grunt from above. She might as well have been accompanied home by pigs.
    She reached a less treacherous stretch of the trail and dusted off her hands. She set out walking before the doubting Thomas brothers were down. The sky had taken on the gray light of dawn. And she’d be able to make good time now.
    â€œSo you’ve gone from elephants to fish,” Ethan said. “Has all the big stuff been found?”
    That thought gave her pause. What if all the fossils had been found? How many could there be anyway? What would she do then? There were always rock formations of course, but she didn’t find them nearly as interesting as fossils. Worried, she became all the more determined to study those in the cave. Why would there be fish in a cave at the top of a mountain? There would be only one reason.
    Indians eat fish. Hah!
    And why would Indians have a meal in a cave they had to climb down into like that? Rafe would change his tune when he saw it.
    She glanced back at the menfolk and realized she could see them pretty well now. Still no sun down in this gully, but it was more shadows than nighttime.
    Rafe smiled at her and she stumbled. He grabbed her arm and kept her from falling. Rescued again. She sighed silently and went back to watching where she was going.
    They came up to a ledge and she pointed down. “See, we can cross on that.”
    Rafe came up on her right. She saw him look down and study the stone path about eight feet below that spanned the rushing waters. “We can cross on that? Uh . . . do you just jump down to that first rock?”
    â€œI’ll show you.” She sat down on the ledge and rolled so she lay on her belly, her feet dangling. She found the slender gouge in the smooth stone for her toes and, with no trouble at all, lowered herself to the first slab of granite in the bubbling creek. The stone was flat and it stuck up high enough that the top never got wet. A few of the stones were just barely above water level and they’d been submerged a few times when there’d been rain, but today it was as easy as walking on a sidewalk.
    Julia scurried across and found the narrow cut that she could walk up. She didn’t even look back; getting home seemed most important now. Not to mention that looking at Rafe had an unsettling effect on her knees.
    She climbed, using her hands to steady herself, but able to walk rather than needing to scale a cliff like they had on the other side of the creek. She came out onto a clear view of her home about a quarter of a mile down the mountainside.
    She stopped to let Rafe catch up and smiled. “There it is.” She thought it rather mature of her not to say I told you so .
    Rafe scowled. “That creek will flood if there’s a heavy rain upstream. You’d be swept away. You can’t go climbing down into that gully.”
    â€œSure I can. I do it all the time.”
    Rafe grabbed her by both shoulders and turned her to face him. “You’re going to get yourself killed over a fish carcass.”
    â€œFish fossil , and I won’t get killed. You fret around like a baby with a wet diaper.”
    Rafe’s brows shot up.
    Audra